


Ghosts

by Pidonyx



Series: Ghosts [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Age Swap, Ang was head medic at the same time, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood, F/F, Mentions of Violence, Role Reversal, and more of a "there's something going on here why won't you just listen", angela is tired and so am i, because of course there's crying in this, its an AU where Fareeha was Strike Commander during Overwatch's glory years, its mostly just patching up an injury with lots of crying, its probably not what you're thinking, kind of, lets just go, lots of "whoops not dead", so if that's not your jam then maybe this isn't for you, uh yea, usually I see it as a mix of both but here it's more on that side of the spectrum so
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-02
Updated: 2017-04-02
Packaged: 2018-10-13 21:46:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10522533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pidonyx/pseuds/Pidonyx
Summary: Overwatch gone. Two people dead. Two ghosts walking.*Or, six years after the destruction of Overwatch, a pair of tentative allies find out a little more about each other.





	

**Author's Note:**

> To start, this is not nearly as serious as that description may lead you to believe. The mood's a little lighter than all that, and it focuses a bit more on the reunion of sorts than anything else. It's also pretty short. I just wasn't sure how to describe the story without it sounding TOO lighthearted or just telling the story for me. 
> 
> I'd also like to apologize for writing an AU instead of any actual in-canon stuff. Let's just get this over with. If you have any suggestions, edits or questions, feel free to comment as always. 
> 
> Title is from "Ghosts" by Casey Abrams because...I don't know, it feels like a good fit for the mood of this fic.

It didn't look so great. Horus's hands hovered over Sigrún's chest, flitted over to the mask, cracked down the side, then down to where a round of bullets had ripped through the side of the jacket and through half her side. She had basic medical training, of course she did, but here...she didn't even know where to start.

Sigrún coughed, grasping at Horus's sleeve. Impressively calm for the situation, she said, "The canisters on my belt. Grab one, please." Her voice was rough from pain but her body was still, tone almost matter-of-fact. It reminded Horus irresistibly of Angela, and she had to clamp down on those rising emotions before they could distract her from the issue at hand: Sigrún, her ally, perhaps she'd even say colleague, of these past few months, bleeding out on the rooftop in front of her, in need of her assistance and focus.

When Horus had fetched the canister, Sigrún took it with a murmured thanks and pointed to where her belt and hip pouch were discarded. "There are medical supplies in my bag. Could you get it?"

Horus nodded, stumbling to her feet again. She shouldn't be this shaken up over something like this, she'd seen it many times before, but Sigrún's side was bleeding sluggishly and all she could think of was blinding light, crushing weight, sliced flesh, a gush of warm, slick fluid, blood, blood, blood, filling her senses, pooling in her throat, her chest...

A wheezing cough from behind her shook her out of her memories once again and Horus snatched up the leather bag from where she'd thrown it haphazardly upon getting Sigrún to the roof, hands trembling. Sigrún was here now, and she needed help. She needed help. Get the supplies.

Horus resisted the urge to clutch the pouch to her chest as she walked stiffly back to where Sigrún lay prone on the concrete rooftop. She was a goddamn adult. Actually, a bit beyond an adult at her age. So squeezing the bag like a lost child with a security blanket was...ridiculous. She set the satchel down next to the other woman, who had activated the canister. The golden field emitting from the canister hub bathed her in a warm glow, glinting off the blood pooling next to her stomach and making the ugly wound carved in her side look almost lovely. Almost.

"I've evaluated the wound from what I could feel." Sigrún spoke as Horus knelt beside her again. "I know it's not sanitary to be poking at it, but based on what I felt, I don't think it's life threatening. Just painful." She stifled a gasp as she tried to shift her position. "That is, as long as we get it treated." Sigrún reached for the satchel, but withdrew as soon as she moved, a drawn out hiss of agony escaping.

Horus was immediately at attention. "Here, let me," she said, gently moving Sigrún's arm back to her side. Sigrún said nothing, but huffed in response, and Horus could imagine a frown under her mask. The thought brought a bittersweet smile to her face, still concealed behind her own mask. As stubborn as Angela, too.

She opened the pouch, rifling carefully past the neatly stored magazines of ammo, canteen, even more biotic canisters, and...what looked like an old Overwatch comm? Horus forced herself to ignore that for the moment, though it did confirm the hunch she'd been harboring for weeks. Finally, deep within the bag was a fairly large package of medical supplies. Opening it, Horus realized with more than a little surprise that some of it she didn't know how to use. It was more than a basic field first aid kit, so much it was slightly overwhelming. 

She turned back to Sigrún, who was still lying quietly, head tilted far enough back that a stripe of pale, scarred skin was exposed at the top of her neck where the collar of her jacket met her jaw. Her chest rose and fell in shallow, painful breaths. "Walk me through this," Horus said, keeping her voice as calm as possible. 

"I thought you were in the military," Sigrún said, tone lightly teasing. 

Horus remained serious. "I was. I had basic training. And that was all on how to patch up injuries just well enough to last until...until the medics could get them back to full health." Her voice caught slightly, and she scolded herself silently for being so pathetic. "I don't know how to deal with injuries this severe, at least to the level that you need. And the medical supplies here aren't labeled."

Sigrún tilted her head to the side. "Alright. Take the water and soap and sterilize your hands. You're going to have to take your gloves off."

Horus obeyed, hesitating only slightly before tugging off the dark blue gloves. Sigrún, to her merit, only twitched slightly in surprise at the sallow corpse-grey of her skin, at the faint cast of smoke that drifted from a scar on her wrist. When her hands were sterile, Sigrún pointed as well as she could towards a small bottle at the edge of the pile and a folded package of cloth. "Now take the solution and put it on the cloth. You'll use that to clean the wound."

Horus moved for the bottle but did pause this time, looking back over her shoulder. "Do you have any painkillers in here?"

Sigrún shook her head slightly. "I used the last of them the other day and haven't had the chance to steal more. In any case, I would not ask you to use them on me. They are only for the people I assist."

Horus swallowed against the lump in her throat and picked up the bottle and cloth. "Alright."

She helped Sigrún out of her torn leather jacket, carefully peeling away the fabric from the jagged bullet wounds. She ran a thumb over the engraved wings on the back before folding it and placing it with the rest of Sigrún's belongings.

Sigrún was silent through the entire cleaning of the injury, though she gripped Horus's arm so hard that when she finally finished and pulled away, five crescent divots in her arm showed where the other woman had dug her nails in.

Sigrún took a deep, steadying breath of air before speaking again. "Now get the needle and thread and stitch it up."

Horus felt her stomach twist in nausea, but once again, she obeyed. She tried to ignore the blood as she worked, breathing through her mouth so she wouldn't have to feel the metallic tang at the back of her throat. Sigrún acted unbothered by the blood; breathing heavily in combat to the pain, but sighing in relief when Horus finished. "Now get the gauze and the bandages."

Horus wrapped the wound tightly in clean white bandage, clipping it neatly at the end. Satisfied, she ran more water over her hands as quickly as possible, washing until the bloody stream ran clear.

When she came back, Sigrún was sliding her own padded glove off and probing the dressed wound with delicate fingers. Seeming pleased, she reached out to squeeze Horus's bare hand, not seeming to mind the coldness or the smoke. "Thank you."

Horus blinked in surprise. "You're welcome." Then she reached for Sigrún's mask. 

Sigrún grabbed Horus's arm as it moved towards her face. "What are you doing?" Her tone wasn't exactly unfriendly, but it was certainly apprehensive. 

Horus didn't push it, but she didn't move her arm either. "A bullet hit you in the face. Even if it didn't graze your cheek, your mask is cracked and there could be shrapnel. I can see blood, at the very least. I need to check it, and to do that I need to remove the mask."

Sigrún's hand held tighter, and she offered no response. 

Horus tried to make her voice as gentle as possible. "I promise I won't tell anyone who you are, if being recognized is what you're worried about."

Sigrún's shoulders slumped as the fight went out of her, and she released her hold on Horus's wrist. 

"Thank you," Horus said quietly, and lifted her hands to the clasps on either side of the face. There was a hiss of air as they slid open. Because the mask was cracked, it took a slight bit of wrangling to get the broken pieces away from Sigrún's face, but when she did, she almost dropped them.

Tired blue eyes stared dully at the air in front of her, eyebrows furrowed slightly. Her mouth was pursed in a small frown, split at one corner by a scar. Familiar freckles still lightly dusted a straight nose, though now slashed through by another thick scar. Once-blonde hair, now silver and streaked with grey, flew in loose strands from a thick bun. Wrinkles at the corners of her eyes had only gotten deeper in six years, and she looked exhausted. In fact, the expression she wore was similar to the one F -- Horus would find her with after a week of not leaving her lab, though this tiredness seemed deeper. Maybe more permanent. Horus's heart clenched.

"Angela...?" Her voice cracked, and Horus flinched.

Sig -- Angela's mouth tightened, and the lines on her face deepened. When she spoke, her voice was hard and carried the bone-deep exhaustion evident in her face. "Angela Ziegler is dead. She's buried in Arlington Cemetery next to Strike Commander Fareeha Amari."

*

Sigrún didn't know what to do when Horus said her name. She had anticipated some sort of recognition when Horus removed her mask. Her face was once plastered on posters, on the news, on billboards. But the way Horus said her name, first only, voice shaking, implied that she knew her more personally than as one of the heroes of Overwatch. Her response was a knee jerk reaction, a culmination of half a decade of loneliness, grief, and anger. Desperately, she thought through any and all people she knew personally that were ex-military, female, and approximately Horus's size and build. She came up with nothing. 

She turned her gaze sharply back to Horus, who was frozen, Sigrún's mask still in hand. She tried to speak commandingly, but it just came out sounding melancholy. "How do you know Angela Ziegler?"

To her surprise, Horus sat back, letting out a choked sob. Even more surprising, Horus reached for her own mask. When it came away, and Horus's hood with it, Sigrún felt every iota of breath leave her lungs.

She was delirious from pain. She must be. She was dreaming, in a fever, making every part of this situation up to spare herself a moment of freedom from this half-existence. In no possible universe could this be real, because Horus looked just like Fareeha Amari, and Fareeha Amari was dead.

She lifted both hands to her eyes, ignoring the sharp flare of pain in her ribs at the movement, pressing the heels of her palms into the sockets until starbursts appeared behind her eyelids. No, this was all made up, and she'd come out of her delirium in a minute, and Horus would be there, silent and broody and always slightly mistrustful (though Angela couldn't really say better for herself), and it would be back to normal. Back to reality. 

She almost had herself convinced, her heart sinking, when she felt a hand on her cheek, tentative, thumb brushing over the scar on her mouth. "Angie...?"

Sigrún opened her eyes, and there she was, still with Fareeha's face. Only...this had to be real. If she was hallucinating, there was no reason why she would have imagined Fareeha any different than how she knew her. This Fareeha had slightly longer hair than she remembered, just sweeping her shoulders, and it was solid white as opposed to merely the bright silver streaks she'd had before the explosion. The bottom was gathered into small, haphazard braids, as if she fiddled with it to keep her hands distracted, though Sigrún could spot one of her old hair ornaments on a single chunk of hair near the back. It was her face that was most changed through, her skin closer to an ashy corpse than the warm tone Sigrún was familiar with. A long, intersecting scar that Sigrún had seen fresh and bleeding, torn into Fareeha's face by a piece of shrapnel, snaked up her cheek, another crossing her nose. Smoke rose from the healed lacerations. Her eyes were almost solid white, a slight sliver of shadow the only indication of where she was looking, and they glowed as if lit from the inside. By all counts, she should have looked far from familiar, but it was Fareeha. She was 100% certain of that. 

Angela's world tilted on its axis and she was free falling. As she struggled to get air back into her body, she reached up to touch the scar on Fareeha's cheek. Fareeha moved delicately, a minute shift in the universe as the world held its breath.

"...Habibti?"

The pet name broke Angela out of her stupor. She breathed a shaky breath, gasping, as tears started to bubble up. Heedless of ripping any stitches or reinjuring herself, she heaved herself up and flung herself into Fareeha, burying her face in the long leather coat Horus wore. Even as she sobbed in full-body heaves, she could feel Fareeha's arms come around her and hold her tight, felt Fareeha bury her nose in her hair. The shaking of her shoulders and the wetness that dropped onto her head only made Angela break down further. Fareeha was alive. Fareeha was alive, alive and here, here with her and holding her as tight as she ever had. She almost couldn't comprehend it, couldn't believe that Fareeha had come back. 

They clung to each other, desperate and stunned, as six years of grief and misery were laid out. Finally, the deluge slowed to a small trickle and Angela allowed herself to sit up, swiping at the tear tracks on her cheeks, though she didn't make any move to remove herself from Fareeha's arms. 

Incredulously, she pressed her hand into Fareeha's collarbone, reaching up with the other to brush her cheek. "I...I saw you die. You were dead, I couldn't save you..." She swallowed back another flood of tears threatening to spill over and threaded her hands through Fareeha's hair. "How are you alive...?"

Fareeha didn't respond at first, adjusting so Angela was nestled against her chest with her arms around her. Once her chin was resting against her head, she spoke, haltingly, the vibrations rumbling where Angela's ear was pressed. "I don't know. I know that...I'm not exactly alive. I'm more alive than dead, but...whatever it is...that you did didn't bring me back completely. Didn't work until after the fact, either. I think I was a couple weeks dead when I...woke up, for lack of a better term." She moved her head so her cheek was against Angela's hair. "What was it exactly? What you did."

Her tone was anything but accusatory, but Angela felt a sick twist of guilt at the thought that this was her doing. "Nanobots," she croaked. "They weren't ready." She clenched her fists in Fareeha's jacket. "I'm so sorry."

Fareeha stiffened. "No, no, no, don't apologize, please, it wasn't your fault. And if being alive again means I get to see you, it is more than worth it." She rubbed soothing circles on Angela's back as she spoke, and Angela buried her face in Fareeha's neck. There was a calm lull in conversation where neither of them said anything. Then, "If anyone is to blame, it is me."

Angela sat up, aghast. Fareeha's expression had clouded, a frown tugging at her lips. "What on earth are you talking about?"

Fareeha pressed their foreheads together, not meeting her gaze. "I should have listened."

Then it clicked. "Oh...Schatz...maybe you should have. And I should have been more patient. But listen to me now. We've been working together these last few months, and in this time alone we have enough information to know you couldn't have stopped it at that point, save exposing it fully to the public. And then you might have been gone anyways."

The huff of breath Fareeha let out was closer to a sob than a sigh. "Right before the bomb went off...I was going to apologize. And when I woke up...I was sure I was never going to be able to tell you I was sorry."

She clutched at Angela's shoulders, struggling with the words. "You--" She swallowed. "When I saw your headstone, I--"  
She cut herself off, but Angela had gone pale. 

"You...oh, I didn't think about that. I was sure you were dead..." She wrapped her arms back around Fareeha's neck, mumbling soothing words to herself as much as to Fareeha. "I'm here, you're here. We're okay. We're going to be okay."

"I love you. I didn't tell you enough when I was alive." Fareeha's voice had dropped to a whisper, but that really did seal Angela's fate. Taking Fareeha's chin in one hand, she kissed her hard. 

Fareeha was colder than she remembered, with a taste of smoke, but the smell of gunpowder and metal was still there, the hint of spices, the familiarity in which Fareeha responded, and Angela could feel tears pricking the corners of her eyes again. 

She broke the kiss with a sigh, laying her chin on Fareeha's shoulder. "I love you too."

She felt Fareeha's lips brush her ear, her hair tickle her neck, and knew, for the first time in a long, long time, that she was home.


End file.
